had been with them. Her mother had died when Emily was fifteen years old. Four women driving away from the church together talked of Emily.

"I 'most cried, just to see Milly there without him beside her," one said.

"Seems to me she 'll be more like a widow than anything else," said another. "How she did love her father! Nothin' was too good for him. I don't know what she 'll ever do without him," said the third.

"And he loved her, too, more than anything on earth, an' he was good to her, mighty good to her," said the last.

"It breaks my heart to think of her alone in that big house, cryin' her eyes out all by herself."

"Most likely she 'll have some one come and live with her, or maybe she 'll get married."

"Who 'd she get, I'd like to know, who 'd satisfy her after livin' all her life with Isaac Rund?"

No one had any suggestions to make on that point, and they talked on, lamenting the loneliness and the sorrow of the daughter, alone in the big house.

The men in Millford spoke entirely of Isaac and not of the daughter. She was the women's concern, but a few of the men thought a great deal about Milly. Milly was a nice girl, but her father had been an insurmountable obstacle in the path that led to Milly's affections.

LATE in the afternoon of the funeral Milly Rund stood on the piazza of the big house, her eyes following the automobile that was bearing away her brother Horace and his wife. When it had disappeared, she turned and went slowly and with uncertain step into the house. The closing of the door set up an eddy of dust, clearly to be seen where a beam of sunshine passed through it. The house was filled with the scent of roses and heliotrope, and she inhaled it as though it were unpleasant to her.

She went on to the sitting-room, and her eyes fell on the carpet where her father's feet had worn a hole almost through it. Oh, how many times she had moved his chair, and how many times he had moved it back to the spot where his shuffling boots had worn out the car

pet as he sat by the lamp reading his farm journal!

She detected ar odor, well known and well disliked-an odor that staled the heavy perfume of the flowers; she saw her father's great pipe, rank and brown, on the table. She picked it up loathingly with the tips of two fingers, and dropped it into the waste-basket. Then she knelt quickly, wrapped it in paper, and hid it among the other waste; for she knew that it would trouble Abraham, her father's old chore-man, if he found it, an intimate symbol of his master, so quickly and so ruthlessly disposed of.

Milly went to the window and opened it and its shutters, letting sunshine and fresh air into the room. She saw the sun shining bright on the white steeple. She thought of her brother and his wife, who had left her and by now had passed the church and were flying toward their home.

"They might at least have stayed to supper," she said in a whisper, forgetting that she had murmured, "Thank God!" when they, the last to leave, were gone.

Then she thought of the will, which Horace had read hurriedly as a document well known to him. She was not quite sure what the will said; she hardly cared. Half of everything went to Horace outright, and half to her for life, and to her children after her, if she should have any children; but if not, it went to the church. That was about it, that was close enough. Children! children! If she should have any children! She laughed aloud, a harsh, pathetic laugh, and her eyes rested on the white steeple flashing in the sunlight.

Her brother had said:

"You'll stay on here, of course, Milly; you'll have plenty. I'll let you know within a day or two what the first quarter's payment will be."

She had said:

"Yes, Horace," meekly. Then he said: "Will you come over Wednesday? Come to dinner, and we 'll go over things then. I'll tell the church people about father's will; I don't believe they knew what he er about his intentions." Even Horace took it for granted that Milly's youth was gone, that there remained for her only the drab years of spinsterhood, that eventually the money would go to the church.

Horace's wife had spoken to her then. "You must n't mind his not giving the money to you outright, Milly. He set a great store by you," she said.

Milly had said nothing, had made no complaint. Now, alone in the sittingroom, she made no complaint; she wished for nothing except that by some miracle the white steeple might disappear, so that she need not look at it forever.

Milly closed her eyes and sighed deeply, and then suddenly she laughed so loudly that the wren on the piazzarail was frightened and flew away.

"Well, it's all over and finished," she said aloud and in her normal, calm voice. She turned back to the room, found a cloth, and dusted the walnut furniture. There was a suggestion of new animation about her, an aspect of contentment, and now and again she stood erect and drew in a deep breath, as though she were inhaling something more than air.

THE last three days had been very hard indeed.

"It would be better if she would only cry." Milly had heard her sister-in-law

She had known that the people downstairs were talking about her, saying what a good daughter she had been, how faithfully she had served the man who lay dead in the next room, and talking of the hats and clothes and shoes he had given her, garments that she knew he had selected to suit himself and his ideas of proper dress for her, with no thought of her taste or her desires, and had forced her to wear, with that dull, ponderous, domineering self-satisfaction of his. And all the time, while those clothes mortified her, he had bragged of his love for her.

Milly, lying calm and peaceful in her bed, as she had not done for years and years, had heard the hum of voices from below-voices which she knew were

praising him and praising her. And there in bed, alone, and in the darkness, strange thoughts had come to her: never again was she to sit opposite him at the table and watch for the inevitable spilling of gravy on his gray beard or on the table-cloth, never again to be waked at night to tell him the t'me because he would not put his watch under his pillow or to take him water because he would not let her put a pitcher beside his bed, never again to find out for him in the small hours of the morning the meaning of some noise that he had heard or fancied he had heard.

"Honor thy father and thy mother." The thought had made her start and sit up in bed. She had; indeed she had!

The next morning when she woke she had seen her mourning-clothes hanging on the closet-door, the long crape veil moving a little in the air that came through the open window. Her sister-inlaw had brought those somber garments; she had bought them before she came to preside over the stricken house. Even to the hushing of her voice as she had unpacked the boxes her brother's wife had prepared her rôle for her, the mourner, and the veil would hide her scarlet cheeks, would conceal her dry eyes when she appeared before the good people of Millford.

All that second day the spring sunshine had called to her to sing, to go into the fields and dance the dance of freedom; the dogwood cried aloud to her, the scent of roses had filled her heart with rapture, the tulips by the fence had sung sweet songs to her: but no one in the whole world might know of these things.

Again, on the second night, she had gone to bed with her door locked, and soon her sister-in-law had come and whispered her name, and Milly had not answered.

"Poor Milly!" her sister had said to Horace. "She is asleep now; it hardly seems she could have slept a wink these last weeks. Father was n't easy, Horace, but he was good to her."

"She was his favorite," Horace said. "It 's too bad Milly is n't married, now this has happened."

"She's never cared much for men, Milly has n't," Horace had answered.

"I don't see why not. I used to think Milly was quite good-looking. Most people would n't; but even now-did you notice to-day how her color came and went?"

"It's nervousness; she's not well. We should n't have let her nurse father all alone. Poor Milly! He was everything to her."

"She was everything to him," her sister-in-law had said.

Poor Milly! People's hearts had gone out to her on the third day as she sat, straight and tearless, through the service, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. She had made her brother walk with his wife, who always cried at funerals. Milly was apart from them, apart from every one, apart from the ceremony; her thoughts were of the sunshine and the fields, of the flowers and trees, of the house and the peace that had, after all these years, come upon it. On the next day she would go to the woods and bring home yellow violets and plant them in the bed by the gate. She would take her lunch with her and eat it there alone; she would not be home when people came to see her, some with consolation, some few with true sympathy, but most with curiosity.

And now it was all over, and Milly was dusting the sitting-room.

"That wife of Horace's always was a poor duster; I hope nobody noticed," she thought, as she worked at the carvings of her father's desk. Then, seeing a pile of letters, she sat down.

"I'd better answer these and have it over with," she said to herself.

As she read them her cheeks became crimson. That her grief should be taken so for granted, and comfort from Holy Writ and from experience so lavishly poured upon her, was intolerable. If only she had not made the terrible discovery that she was glad, she could have answered the letters; but now, as she dipped her pen into the ink and held it over the paper, she could find nothing to write, and a sort of shame crept over her. But it was not as though he had really loved her; he had needed her, that was all. No one, she thought, had ever loved her. She put her head in her hands and let the tide of doubt rush over her.

She began sorting over the letters again, thinking that perhaps she could find something to say to at least a few of the writers, but her hand went off at a tangent, first closing the inkstand and then mechanically opening the drawers. of the desk. That gave her the inspiration of something to do. She would look over her father's things, clean out the desk, and use it herself. There was one drawer which her father had always kept locked, the small middle one, which when she was a child had been a very mysterious drawer. She got the key, unlocked it, and drew out a packet of letters which was its only contents. They were old letters, written in curious hands, and she knew immediately that they were letters of condolence written to her father when her mother died.

There was one from Uncle Augustus, in a yellow envelop on which the ink had faded; it was nearly illegible and entirely biblical, six pages on the will of God. Uncle Augustus had been gone ten years. The next was from Nancy Heber, written in her mincing backhand; Miss Nancy had from the very first commis

erated with her father on his motherless babes. She remembered how, trembling in a corner and frightened by gossip overheard at Sunday school, she and Horace had discussed stepmothers. Milly had not seen Miss Nancy since her father's death, which meant that she must be bedridden again.

Milly read letter after letter, letters to the man who had called her all day long to do this or that for him, to drudge for him, who had followed her into her own garden, giving orders as to what she should do and should not do there, the man who had never been young, who had known nothing of youth, who had never had sympathy for her, who had treated her as a being of no mind, as a slave, bound to service and obedience by ties stronger than wages.

He had been a man robbed of his wife, robbed when he was young, at least in years, and she wondered what answer he had made to those letters. Perhaps she could find tears to shed for the man who had tied that packet even if she could not weep for the man who had died three days before.

The sun had sunk, and twilight was in the sitting-room. She heard the tinkle of a cow-bell, and knew that Abraham was bringing in the cows, and that very soon supper would be ready, her first meal alone in the big house.

"I had forgotten that he loved mother," she whispered. There were three letters remaining unread; she would hardly have time to read them. She turned one, looked at the second, and then at the third, and the blood rushed to her face and she felt a burning heat in her body. She had recognized the precise, labored writing.

She looked at the date of the letter before her; it had been written years after those other letters. She read it, calmly, and with little interest, for she had known what it contained the moment she had seen it with those others, which had always been in the locked drawer.

What an absurd letter it was!

I shall be most thankful if you will give your permission to my suit to your daughter's hand. I have loved Miss Milly for a long time, but only now that I am offered to go to Oregon, of which I spoke to you, have I dared to think of marrying her. My uncle Will says he is willing for us both to come. you, sir, let me know at once if you are agreeable to this before I speak to her. Respectfully yours, and I hope soon to sign myself CROCKER SPIES.

your son.

Milly walked to the window; her breath came in quick gasps, her eyelids drooped, her nails pressed into the palms of her hands. Why had her father never shown her this letter, why had he never said anything of it to her, how dared he conceal such a thing from her? Why had Crocker Spies never spoken to her of marriage? If her father had loved her, if he had even respected her or had had her welfare in his heart, would he have acted as he had?

She had cared nothing for Crocker Spies; the thought of marrying him had never entered her head, and she had never given much thought as to whether or not he had loved her. One day under the willows he had been a little sentimental and very bashful; it had looked a little like love, but it was springtime, and later on he had gone away, and she had not

cared. But he had loved her, no matter what sort of love it had been. He had been her first lover, and her last! Why? Why had no other men come to woo her? Was she less attractive than other girls in Millford who had had lovers and been married?

The gloom of deep twilight lay all about her; she could see the dark outline of the willows under which Crocker Spies had been sentimental, where he had made love to her. She closed her eyes; her head went slowly back; she breathed inward, long and slowly, and then her breath escaped in a great sigh that carried out from her the torture that had been in her mind, the pain that had been in her heart, the fear for her righteousness that had been in her soul.

She was free! The last bond which demanded sorrow of her had been severed: she need not cry. She had slaved her life away, she had suffered long and exquisite torture, and in return she had been denied her woman's birthright.

She opened her eyes slowly, and saw the steeple of the white church, faint and She gray in the gathering darkness. laughed, a low laugh of victory, straight at the steeple of the white church as though it were an animate thing and could hear and understand.

She spoke to it:

"I'm free! I'm free! And I'm only thirty-five. I'm only thirty-five." Her hands flew to her breast; amazement was in her eyes, and she forgot the white steeple. "I'm only thirty-five, only thirty-five," she muttered.

She sank, trembling, into the chair before the desk, and stared into the darkness. She turned, very slowly at first, and then fell forward on the desk, burying her face in the circle of her blacksleeved arms; and there she cried.

ABRAHAM, tiptoeing to the door, saw her there, and went away.

"You'd better wait supper awhile for Miss Milly," he said to Annie, the cook. "Has she cried yet?" asked Annie. "She cryin' now like her heart would break."

"God be praised!" Annie said. "It 's the only thing will save her, gettin' some of the grief out. How she loved him!"